


A Sort of Walking Miracle

by cassyl



Series: Lazarus [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Not Really Character Death, Post Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-05
Updated: 2013-02-05
Packaged: 2017-11-28 06:19:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/671251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cassyl/pseuds/cassyl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All in all, Sherlock has adjusted surprisingly well to being alive again.  "Pushing Daisies" fusion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Sort of Walking Miracle

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this post](http://fuckyeahjohnlockfanfic.tumblr.com/post/38131708450/devinleighbee-fanfics-that-need-to-be-written) over on [fuckyeahjohnlockfanfic](http://fuckyeahjohnlockfanfic.tumblr.com/). Title from Plath's "[Lady Lazarus](http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15292)". If anyone else has tried their hand at this premise, I would love to read it.

All in all, Sherlock has adjusted surprisingly well to being alive again. There are no hysterics when John explains he’s brought Sherlock back, no blind refusals or desperate attempts to rationalize. Somehow, he’d expected hysterics.

John certainly feels a measure of panic in connection with his ability to bring the dead back to life, and he’s had years to come to terms with it.

But Sherlock seems to understand as soon as he regains consciousness. (John will never not remember that Sherlock’s first words were his name.) From the very moment he sits up on the gurney in Barts morgue, he takes his death and reanimation entirely in stride. Maybe it’s something in the body, irrefutable for him because he’s experienced it on a molecular level.

He does ask John to demonstrate – _Not on another person_ , he says, as if that makes it any better – but John tells him in no uncertain terms that demonstrations, experiments, trials, and any other kind of research into this area is entirely out of the question.

John has done enough of research of his own for the both of them. After the first time it happened, he realized he needed to work out the rules, and quickly. 

He tested his ability on the wild dogs that shadowed the base in Afghanistan, on plants and birds and snakes, any dead thing he could manage to get ahold of without arousing suspicion. It took him time and plenty of trial and error before he started to sense the pattern, but he did, eventually, learn.

The one question he could never answer was why it had happened at all. So many people were dying, and so many of them for no good reason. He wanted to understand what it was about Private William Murray that caused that tide of pure life to rise up inside him. He wanted to understand why he could do what he’d done. But no matter how many experiments he did, he could never explain that.

*

In the first few days, John can hardly speak to Sherlock, let alone look at him. He’s angry at Sherlock for so many things – for faking his suicide, for faking his suicide without John’s help, for actually dying, for making him watch, for making John do what he swore he would never do again. But Sherlock never asked to be brought back. That John did entirely on his own, because he couldn’t not.

After his anger subsides a little, John goes to Sherlock (who is stretched out on the sofa as if nothing’s changed) and says, “I’m not budging on what I said about no experiments on living subjects, but you have a right to understand how this works. So here’s what I’m willing to do: you ask questions, I’ll answer them as best I can.”

Sherlock narrows his eyes, intrigued. “All right,” he says slowly, and John can already feel him calculating his plan of attack.

“What, now?”

“When else?” He swings his feet down onto the floor, sitting up, immediately expectant.

“Right.” John promptly stands, walks into the kitchen, makes tea. It’s a reflex.

He can feel Sherlock’s gaze following him around the kitchen. It is very much like a touch, as close as he’ll ever get now.

Once he’s set a cup down in front of Sherlock (careful not to let their fingers brush), he resumes his seat at the table, wiping his palms on the tops of his thighs. “All right, then,” he says.

Sherlock wraps his hands around his mug as if the warm porcelain is a proxy for John’s touch. “So you can wake the dead.”  
That’s the short version, anyway. How can he possibly articulate that swell of absolute energy that rises in him, or the feeling of Sherlock’s heart restarting itself? How can he explain Private Murray’s eyes opening, the unfocussed look of wonder on his face? (It isn’t instantaneous, the process of resuscitation, the way one might think. It’s more like rising slowly out of a deep sleep. _I thought for sure I was a goner, Doc_ , Murray said when he came to. His expression was open, trusting, like a child’s. He seemed, somehow, new.)  
John can’t explain any of that, so instead he says, “Yeah.”

“But I’ve seen you touch corpses before, plenty of times.”

Yes, there have been enough corpses to last a lifetime, more than enough. “It has to be skin-on-skin contact. At crime scenes—”

“I’ve seen you touch dead things without gloves on,” Sherlock insists, anticipating, always anticipating what John will say.

“That’s true.” He wets his lips. If he’s quiet, and listens closely, he can almost hear the electricity always thrumming just under his skin. “It’s . . . not automatic. I have to decide to do it.”

“Of course,” Sherlock says, more to himself than to John, piecing it together. “Otherwise you couldn’t very well have continued working as a combat surgeon without someone noticing.”

It’d been terrifying at first, before he realized he had some say about when the surge welled up in him. In the hours after he brought Private Murray back, he hadn’t dared touch anything, for fear of what he might do. “I suppose not.”

“So you can control it.”

“More or less,” John says. _Except with you._

Sherlock narrows his eyes. “But you still don’t want me to touch you.”

“No.”

“Because I’ll fall dead again if I do.”

Sherlock clearly isn’t convinced, but John clasps his hands together behind his back, just to be sure. “Yes.”

“But if you can control it, why—”

“Because I can’t!” He doesn’t mean to shout. Sherlock is only trying to understand. He deserves that much. John takes a deep breath. “I can choose when to turn it on, but once I’ve touched something, that’s it—I can’t touch it ever again or it’s gone for good.”

It was one of the wild dogs that taught him this. It’d been hit by a Jeep, which seemed at the time like a stroke of luck for John, who was still trying to work out the mechanics of his newfound power. The look in its eyes when it first woke up was not unlike the expression Murray wore when he came to—dazed wonderment, gratitude. And when it leaned forward to lick John’s hand in thanks, there was just enough time for the poor creature to know it’d been betrayed before it died again.

“And in exchange—?”

John nods. It has to be said. He thinks of Lieutenant Driscoll lying there, dead, while Private Murray lived. Sherlock has to understand. “Someone else dies.”  
Sherlock doesn’t ask who it was that took his place, though John doesn’t know if it’s because Sherlock doesn’t want to know, or because he simply doesn’t care. John would like to think it’s the former. Maybe he already knows.

“You blame yourself,” Sherlock realizes.

For Driscoll, the wild dog, the countless birds that fell out of the sky—how could he not? How could he not despise himself, even just a little, for the exchange of lives he’s allowed to take place? How could he not wonder what it was all for? 

“You’ve killed people before,” Sherlock says, still uncomprehending. “If this is a moral objection—”

“It’s not,” John snaps, desperate to make him understand. “Taking a life is one thing, but giving one back . . . That’s different. Death shouldn’t be something you can just undo. It’s not something I should be able to undo. It might seem like a gift, but I can’t believe it is.”

Sherlock looks at him calmly, so very much alive, and says, “Isn’t it?”

“It’s not—” John has to be very careful to make himself breathe. “A gift implies it’s from somebody, doesn’t it? No one _gave_ me this. I didn’t ask for it. It just _is_. And I’ve never once been glad of it.” He looks down at his knees, then back up at Sherlock. “Until you.”

The look on Sherlock’s face is the clouds opening up, like watching him come to life all over again. 

_Oh_ , John thinks, _this is what it was for_.


End file.
